Comments on: On George Turner’s must-read excellent piece on the Lib Dem campaign in Vauxhall…http://neilmonnery.co.uk/2017/08/01/on-george-turners-excellent-piece-on-the-lib-dem-campaign-in-vauxhall/
Another pointless voice in the vast ocean that is the interwebThu, 10 May 2018 11:37:54 +0000hourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=5.0.3By: George Turnerhttp://neilmonnery.co.uk/2017/08/01/on-george-turners-excellent-piece-on-the-lib-dem-campaign-in-vauxhall/#comment-180296
Wed, 16 Aug 2017 19:13:00 +0000http://neilmonnery.co.uk/?p=3916#comment-180296Hi Niel,

Firstly, thanks so much for your very kind words on my piece.

@Hywel, let me reassure you, I have not fallen victim to candidateitis. I have been an agent in local election campaigns before and was Simon Hughes’ Head of Office for three years, including over the period of the 2010 election. So I did have some experience of how elections work before this one.

As you say, you have not seen the figures, I have. I am not sure I can disclose more in a public forum than I have already, but what I will say is that the data was what the data was. Data can be wrong, but for the reasons set out in my article, I dont think it was.

I appreciate the story is an unlikely one, but this was an unlikely election. Who would have thought on day one that May would lose her majority? At the beginning of the election everyone thought that May was heading for a landslide.

I too saw the twitter rumors on the night that we might have won Vauxhall, they certainly weren’t coming from my team. We knew the score very soon after the boxes started arriving at the count.

For what its worth, Kate’s team at the count seemed as surprised as we were at the size of her victory, and her ungracious behavior at the declaration demonstrated at least that she had been worried by our campaign.

]]>By: Hywelhttp://neilmonnery.co.uk/2017/08/01/on-george-turners-excellent-piece-on-the-lib-dem-campaign-in-vauxhall/#comment-179858
Fri, 11 Aug 2017 08:15:28 +0000http://neilmonnery.co.uk/?p=3916#comment-179858The comments about national campaigns ring quite true with me but the whole article is basically one of rampant candidatitis (which occurs in every election).

I doubt the data really did show the Lib Dems well ahead of Labour early in the campaign – why think that without having seen any figures? Because I’ve heard that sort of tale numerous times before. That position is in itself an unlikely position that would need further scrutiny. Often data can look that way because there is a small but very enthusiastic level of support but a large, less enthusiastic support for the main opponent which isn’t always picked up that well in canvassing. That is even more of the case if a campaign team is heavily evangelistic as they start to believe what they want to believe. More times than I can count I’ve had candidates say that “everyone was voting for us”. When you look at the ticks on the paper its 2 in ten who are down as Lib Dem with a number of don’t knows/not sures way more than that.

Lets say it was true and the LIb Dems were well ahead of Labour early on. If well ahead is 5% then the figures could have been something like Con 20, Others 5 so LD 40, Lab 35. By polling day that had turned into Con 18, Others 5ish, LD 20 and Labour 57. in rough terms the LD vote halved and Labour’s doubled. That’s not really a believeable outcome.

There were comments on the night from the Count that vauxhall was looking close which tend to further illustrate the point that the analyss on the ground was flawed.

There shoud be no surprise that the narrative turned and there was a swing to Labour. It happens every election. Every Single One. The Lib Dems have always seen their poll ratings peak mid campaign rather than at the end. It’s notable that George writes of the conversations changing rather than this being picked up in canvassing data though – see above about data analysis.

The other bit that doesn’t ring accurate is the result. In a campaign where she was heavily out-campaigned and deserted by activists Kate Hoey put on votes and polled 7000 more votes than she did in 97 at the height of the Blair landslide. It just doesn’t add up.

]]>By: paul barkerhttp://neilmonnery.co.uk/2017/08/01/on-george-turners-excellent-piece-on-the-lib-dem-campaign-in-vauxhall/#comment-179048
Tue, 01 Aug 2017 20:20:39 +0000http://neilmonnery.co.uk/?p=3916#comment-179048I was predicting that we would get 5 Seats & got some comments about being too optimistic.
The Betting figures for us were nonsense because not many people were betting on us, the money & the attention were all on The Big Two.
You talk as if everyone knew what was happening during the campaign, in fact most people got a big shock.
The crucial point was that The voters treated the Election as if it were a giant Byelection, all the “Other” Parties were squeezed but we got squeezed least : we lost 1/16th of our vote, The Greens lost 3/5ths.
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